Exercise & Weight Loss Plans

The media is full of diet and exercise plans. However, there is no need for most people to sift through hundreds of plans looking for the one that is right for them. The fundamentals of long-term weight loss are not hard to understand, but they always involve regular exercise.

The Physics of Weight Loss

Weight loss depends on three primary factors: how many calories you take in, how many calories you burn and how efficiently your body uses calories. That efficiency is determined by your genetics and body composition. To lose 2 lbs. a week, you will need to create a calorie deficit of 1,000 calories a day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are only three ways to do this -- eat less, exercise more or do both.

Body Composition

Ultimately, it is your body composition, or muscle-to-fat ratio, that matters more than your absolute weight. With a healthy body composition you will look and feel better. If you eat an unhealthy diet, your body is more likely to store calories as fat rather than muscle. You are also likely to lose more muscle than fat when you lose weight. For healthy weight loss, reduce alcohol, sugar and fat, the Department of Health and Human Services advises. Avoid starvation diets. Aim for slow, steady weight loss on a diet that provides your body with sufficient nutrients to fuel exercise.

Aerobic Exercise

An exercise is classified as "aerobic" if it raises your heart rate to between 60 percent and 80 percent of its biological maximum. If you are exercising and can hold a conversation only by pausing once in a while to catch your breath, you are probably exercising aerobically. Aerobic exercise, however, burns only a few hundred calories per hour. If an hour of intense aerobic exercise makes you so hungry that you stop off for a pizza on the way home from the gym, you will probably be fatter once you arrive home than you were before your workout.

Resistance Training

Resistance training includes exercise with free weights, weight machines and resistance bands. This type of exercise helps you lose weight in two ways: by burning calories during exercise and by raising your resting metabolism rate, in which your body burns calories performing basic life-support functions such as breathing and digestion. Resistance training can greatly improve your body composition.

Spot Reduction

Many people try to focus fat loss around a particular body part. An example would be doing sit-ups to reduce belly fat. However, this won't work, according to the American Council on Exercise, because your body gains and loses weight according to its individual genetic blueprint, not the area where you focus exercise. Men tend to lose weight around the belly first, while women tend to lose weight first around the hips.